Hello Avatar Or, {llSay(0, "Hello, Avatar "); is a tiny piece ofuser-friendly code that allows us to program our virtual selves. In Hello Avatar, B.Coleman examines a crucial aspect of our cultural shift from analog to digital: thecontinuum between online and off-, what she calls the "x-reality" thatcrosses between the virtual and the real. She looks at the emergence of a world thatis neither virtual nor real but encompasses a multiplicity of network combinations.And she argues that it is the role of the avatar to help us express our newagency--our new power to customize our networked life. By avatar, Coleman means notjust the animated figures that populate our screens but the gestalt of images, text, and multimedia that make up our online identities--in virtual worlds like SecondLife and in the form of email, video chat, and other digital artifacts. Exploringsuch network activities as embodiment, extreme (virtual) violence, and the work invirtual reality labs, and offering sidebar interviews with designers andpractitioners, she argues that what is new is real-time collaboration andcopresence, the way we make connections using networked media and the cultures wehave created around this. The star of this drama of expanded horizons is thenetworked subject--all of us who represent aspects of ourselves and our work acrossthe mediascape.